Scammers are the lowest of the low

and click on a link or download a dodgy attachment,” he added.

“Worse still, they may even forward the email to a colleague, so now the business is further exposed as there is another possibility for someone else to fall for the phishing attack.

“Trying to clean up an infection at the moment, with staff all spread out, is a nightmare for IT departments. It’s bad enough when everyone is in the same office.

“When you go to a website you are basically giving it permission to run code on your machine through your web browser.”

He said attackers were also pretending to be from a company’s IT department or Microsoft and asking people to change their email passwords as part of their heightened security procedures.

Mr Riddell explained: “What’s the first thing you do when you change password? Enter your old password and you’ve just given them access to your email account.

“They can look for payment information and do things like send fake invoices. It might be they see a genuine invoice come in and then send an email purporting to be from that firm saying the bank details have changed and can you send the money to another account.”

M3 specialises in monitoring the “dark web” where passwords and credit card details are traded. Many firms are oblivious that their information had been compromised.

The Perth company has identified the criminal behaviour using the email security and filter service it provides to clients and also from information shared by the threat intelligence communities.

The effects of a cyber attack can be devastating, with 60% of small companies going out of business within six months of an attack. The volume of cyber attacks on UK businesses increased by almost a third in the first three months of this year, according to new analysis from Beaming.

Companies with internet connections experienced 157,000 attacks each, on average, in the first quarter, the equivalent of more than one a minute.

This rate of attack was 30% higher than the same period last year when UK businesses received 120,000 internetborne attempts to breach their systems each.

Beaming’s analysts identified 394,000 unique IP addresses used to attack UK businesses in the first quarter of this year and traced 48,000 of them to locations in China.

TThe Covid-19 pandemic is a public health disaster and an economic calamity all rolled into one. But as coronavirus continues to rob people of their lives and livelihoods, there are those seeing this situation as an opportunity to exploit rather than a tragedy to mourn.

One IT security business in Perth has flagged more than 100,000 online scams related to Covid-19 in the past weeks, a figure likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

Organised criminal gangs are harnessing technology in their pursuit of cash and, increasingly, people’s data.

They do not care who their victim is, what their personal circumstances are or what impact being a victim of crime might have on them. Their only motive is greed.

Happily, many of their phishing attempts fail thanks to improved internet security and greater awareness among the public of online fraudsters.

But a percentage do succeed and lives are being ruined. It is often hugely difficult to track down the fraudsters behind these scams and, because many originate overseas, it can be even more problematic bringing them to justice.

But that does not mean they should be allowed to ply their trade with impunity.

Online crime may not result in physical harm. But it is no less serious to those whose become victims.

Its investigation demands the same priority as any other criminal enterprise and its perpetrators should feel the cold hand of justice wherever possible.